The Art of Words

Sunday, 2 August 2015

I hate Facebook! It emails me every time one of my friends changes their status! And every time a total stranger wants to be my "friend"!

So turn off notifications.

1. Click the down arrow on the right.

2. Select Settings.

3. Select Notifications.

4. Select Email.

5. Turn everything to OFF.

And those uplifting messages with pictures of sunsets? Click on the down arrow in the top righthand corner, and select from the options (eg, "Hide this post/see fewer like this", "Hide all from the Dalai Lama").

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

We create our own reality, we're in control of our destiny, we're ruled by our subconscious, confidence comes from within, yeah, yeah. Live in the moment, be yourself, you’ll be stronger on your own, yawn.Wilhelm Reich – shaped by his personal experience of war and poverty – believed that suffering was caused by external, socioeconomic factors. (Psychologist, Dec 2014)

Henry Stapp of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California is one
of the few physicists that still subscribe to this notion: we are
‘participating observers’ whose minds cause the collapse of
superpositions... There are many objectors. (New Scientist Sept 2012)

Arrive with three amazing or entertaining stories. At the very least
dress beautifully, smile gleefully and be gracious. (Cleo Rocos on surviving
parties)

Now most people know that verse and we use that out of context to say 'this the college I want to go to, this is the boyfriend or girlfriend I want and this is the job I want, so those are my plans and now God declares that.' (poet Jefferson Bethke on Jeremiah 29:11)

The trouble with women is that they mistake symbolic gesture for effective action. (Simone de Beauvoir)

I've seen a number of men make mistake of assuming feelings are performances to get a response; not things that are a fact. (@MarkOneinFour)

Literature's powers of subtle signification are too often over-read as proof of the impossibility of signification. (Byzantine Ambassador ‏@byzantinepower)

The EU are doing that thing – when you go out with someone and they want YOU to dump THEM, so they start behaving really badly. (HIGNFY)

Just marry SOMEBODY! (Patricia Hodge as Miranda’s mother in Miranda)

Parents like to see that you’re doing well and earning money. (Fern Britton Dec 2014)

As Cicero said, "If it's idiotic, it probably wasn't said by Plato or Einstein”. (@oldandrewuk)

Some themes deep in the heart of Toryism just never go away. Up they pop, over and over. Control the lower orders, stop them breeding, check their spending, castigate their lifestyles. (Polly Toynbee, Dec 2014)

There’s still a culture of disbelief when it comes to rape. (BBC Breakfast, January 2014)

Dinner parties: meetings of bourgeois anonymous. (Nirpal Dhaliwal)

The Two Marks, who used to juggle and unicycle in the old school Arts Council style. (wherediditallgorightblog.wordpress.com But it was so avant garde!)

The Govt of the USA is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. (John Adams)

Business books are basically romance novels for men. Silly fantasies, terrible writing, large type, cheap paper and one good idea per book. (@BenedictEvans 27 Nov 2011)

Dec 24 The birth in a slum of a homeless family's son who preached peace & resistance & was killed by cowards, the state & the police. #Christmas (Greg Carr @AfricanaCarr)

Only eating and sleeping could be said to have a stronger grasp on the steering wheel of our daily behaviour than the thing in our heads that is constantly urging us to find love and have sex... If they are hot, the girls can pick and choose which men they interact with. (jonmillward.com on an internet dating experiment)